


Invisible

by StoriesbyNessie



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Caring Draco Malfoy, Heavy Angst, M/M, Mental Health Issues, POV Ron Weasley, Ron Weasley-centric, Substance Abuse, Suicide Attempt, may add more tags
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:13:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27399301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StoriesbyNessie/pseuds/StoriesbyNessie
Summary: Ron wants to sleep forever. Draco used to want to. Ron wants to be left alone; Draco wants company. Ron’s afraid; Draco’s afraid. It's a mess, really.Very Heavy Angst loosely based on real-life experiences. Please read notes.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Ron Weasley
Comments: 3
Kudos: 47





	Invisible

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: As the summary says, this is very heavy angst, and it's loosely based on my own real-life experiences when I was very sick. This will be a dark story; I will upload at my own pace because this takes a lot for me to write. If you think that this story will be too much for you to read, then please avoid it. I've tried tagging it as much as I can right now, but please know that tags may be added and or changed along the way. Two things I can promise right off the bat though:
> 
> 1\. No major character death
> 
> 2\. There will be a happy ending
> 
> Thank you for taking the time to read. I really appreciate it.

_He had a sick brain._

That was what they all said, anyway. A sick brain. He had left St Mungo's only three days ago, with twelve different potions the Healer had given him, and they were making his mind so weird and numb that all he could do was sleep.

At least sleep was a welcome respite from everything in his head. Ron took his time lining up the potions on his kitchen table—from the tallest to the smallest bottle. It looked satisfying when he stepped back to examine them, though he wondered if it would look better if he sorted them by colour instead.

_No, that_ ’ _d be too weird,_ Ron decided, crouching again so his blue eyes was in the same level as the bottles. It would look so uneven if he did; they were all different sizes. They all had a label with his name, the doses he was prescribed to take and how often he should take them. How many doses the bottle contained in total. Twelve new ones. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever got this many at the same time before. Would taking them all at once make him sleep forever?

_Well, you already know the answer to that one, don_ ’ _t you?_

The thought was tempting. Very tempting. It never stopped being just that for him; Ron was like a kid in a sweetshop, only wanting more, more, more. His biggest wish was to shut his stupid brain up that talked constantly, and told him so many things that would only leave him feeling miserable. These potions were great for turning off his brain, and he longed to turn it off _forever._

That was the tempting part of it. Forever, forever, forever. Merlin, Ron wanted it so bad.

That's why they said his brain was sick because he longed so much for the forever sleep. He'd attempted it a few times too. Not quite managed it all the way through. Ron sometimes wondered if it was pure luck, but decided that it probably just was that he was such a coward that had saved him. He'd chickened out a few times, while other times his life had hung on such a thin thread that yeah, he supposed those times luck had saved him. Or magic, if he was going to be cynical. The Healers at St Mungo's recognised him by now—he once joked about that he should get a VIP room because he was there so often. Nobody had found it funny, and his laugh had echoed hollow, flat and humourless between the hospital walls. That had made him feel sadder and even more pathetic. He was such a stupid idiot that should know better than to joke like that.

Every failed attempt at _the forever sleep_ had earned him more potions. The ones he had in front of him was just the tip of the iceberg—in his cabinet, there were loads more. That was the solution to everything—every time something like this happened. Ron needs more potions—that'll solve it. Fucking fantastic. There weren't enough resources to help him feel better. Handing out potions like it was candy was all they could do. At the end of the day, it only made him feel worse.

At this rate, Ron had stocked up enough potions that he could earn a living as a drug dealer, should he ever feel so inclined. It was ridiculous, really. He never knew there existed so many potions for everything the Healers said was wrong with him. There were potions for depression—several of them actually—potions for sleeping (not that it was anything new), potions for hearing voices, potions for side effects for something else, potions for anxiety, just potions all around. Unscrew the cap, drink, swallow and wait. If you took more than you should, you'd soon stop feeling. It was amazing, but it was also terrifying. That's why he never thought it through first; he always took them when he was panicking or angry or anything like that. Everything he did, always…happened. Ron wasn't someone with a plan—not when it was about him. His whole goal had always been to make his brain shut up, to make the voices go away and to make himself stop feeling everything. He'd always been someone with too many feelings, and they had become such a burden that he was almost choking on them.

Ron hated himself so much. Everything was wrong with him. He was too tall and clumsy for starters, his face was weird, _what normal person had a nose like that?_ Nobody. He could never say or do the right thing in any situation; he always stood there, awkward, like an idiot. He was an idiot. Ron was convinced the world would be a much better place if he was no longer in it. His family wouldn't stress about him; he knew they talked about him and that his mother was worried. If he was gone, she would have peace, that was for sure. Hermione and Harry were so much smarter than him, so much better people with great qualities. Hermione was brainy; Harry was brave. They were both strong characters that constantly outshone him—Ron was nothing next to them. He had never had or been anything special; he'd mainly just been there, next to them, like a shadow in school.

Now, Ron was the centrepiece and not in a good way. Hermione and Harry worried about him, but he could also see that they were tired, always on their toes in case Ron did something bad. Again. That's why he couldn't live alone, and he didn't want to live in the Burrow either and have his mother constantly breathing down his neck and telling him in frustration when she couldn't handle it, that all Ron needed to do was "get himself together." So flat sharing with Harry and Hermione had been the solution. Harry had come up with the idea. Well, actually, Hermione probably had been the one behind it, and only talked Harry into it. But his best mate had presented the idea like it was his own and even though Ron had his doubts, he couldn't be entirely sure.

They had an unspoken rule; Ron should never be alone in the flat. Ever. But sometimes they would forget. Sometimes Ron was alone anyway.

Today, he was.

Ron had bad thoughts in his head; mean little ones about how he only did this for attention. That’s what the voices said he did. It was all for attention. That he wasn’t really sick and it was all a lie. _Why was he like this?_ Why could he never be normal?

The Healers tried to tell him that this was what his sick brain did: making him think stuff like that.

"You are not well, which is why you worry so much," they said. "Your depression makes you hear voices; you feel so bad about yourself that you fear you just make things up. But you are not making anything up, Mr Weasley. You have severe depression."

His medical records said that he was suicidal and depressed along with a lot of other things on a long, constantly added to, list. Ron picked up another bottle, a purple one, and he saw his own reflection in the glass. _Twelve new ones._ Somewhere in his mind, Ron knew that it was absolutely mental to get this many. But the parts of his brain that weren't well didn't care how mental it was. Those parts only welcomed this, and they always wanted more.

Ron stared at the potions all lined up neatly, biting his lip and thinking. No, no thinking. _Turn that off._ Alone, alone, alone.

_You want this. You know you want this. No thinking, thinking is bad Ron, it_ ’ _s bad! Take them, take them, take them, take them, take them. All of theeeeeem._ They screamed. It was loud.

Yeah, Ron thought. All of them.


End file.
